“Man’s Best Friend” has gotten a wonderful publicity boost from the movies. Canine cinema mythology has enhanced human appreciation of a dog’s loyalty, heroism, humor and intelligence from the earliest days of film with such immediate audience favorites as “Rescued by Rover” (1905) and “The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog” (1905).

More than any other four-legged actor, the dog has achieved a unique stardom with such long-lasting box office stars as Strongheart, Teddy, Lassie, Pete the Pup, Benji and particularly Rin Tin Tin. The original Rinty (there would be several over the years) was rescued in Germany during World War I by a U.S. soldier who would mold him for Hollywood stardom, resulting in his becoming one of the biggest box office draws of the late 1920s. The popularity of Rinty’s films would practically underwrite a struggling studio known as Warner Bros. and afford a young writer named Darryl F. Zanuck some of his earliest success.

Join Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief and Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, for an evening of photographs, film clips, behind-the-scenes secrets and surprises featuring more dogs than you can throw a stick for. No pawtographs, please!

Classes typically last for five to ten weeks, and during that time students commit to watching the lectures, and completing interactive quizzes and assignments, which are auto-graded or graded by peers. Upon completion, the student receives a statement of accomplishment, a letter from the professor, and a score, but the course doesn’t count for any actual credit with that specific institution. The site also features a Q&A forum where students can ask questions about the course material and get answers from fellow students.

About 37 million people tuned in to the Academy Awards last year, and a great deal rides on the show’s outcome…Yet the roster of all 5,765 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a closely guarded secret.

The organization does not publish a membership list.

A Los Angeles Times study found that academy voters are markedly less diverse than the moviegoing public…Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%.

Oscar voters have a median age of 62. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.

Some members see it simply as a mirror of hiring patterns in Hollywood, while others say it reflects the group’s mission to recognize achievement rather than promote diversity. Many said the academy should be much more representative.

Caucasians currently make up 90% or more of every academy branch except actors, whose roster is 88% white. The academy’s executive branch is 98% white, as is its writers branch.

Men compose more than 90% of five branches. Of the academy’s 43-member board of governors, six are women; public relations executive Cheryl Boone Isaacs is the sole person of color.

“I don’t see any reason why the academy should represent the entire American population. That’s what the People’s Choice Awards are for,” said (former president of the Academy) Frank Pierson, who still serves on the board of governors. “We represent the professional filmmakers, and if that doesn’t reflect the general population, so be it.”

The 2011 (Oscar) ceremony was staged without a single black male presenter.

About 37 million people tuned in to the Academy Awards last year, and a great deal rides on the show’s outcome…Yet the roster of all 5,765 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a closely guarded secret.

The organization does not publish a membership list.

A Los Angeles Times study found that academy voters are markedly less diverse than the moviegoing public…Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%.

Oscar voters have a median age of 62. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.

Some members see it simply as a mirror of hiring patterns in Hollywood, while others say it reflects the group’s mission to recognize achievement rather than promote diversity. Many said the academy should be much more representative.

Caucasians currently make up 90% or more of every academy branch except actors, whose roster is 88% white. The academy’s executive branch is 98% white, as is its writers branch.

Men compose more than 90% of five branches. Of the academy’s 43-member board of governors, six are women; public relations executive Cheryl Boone Isaacs is the sole person of color.

“I don’t see any reason why the academy should represent the entire American population. That’s what the People’s Choice Awards are for,” said (former president of the Academy) Frank Pierson, who still serves on the board of governors. “We represent the professional filmmakers, and if that doesn’t reflect the general population, so be it.”

The 2011 (Oscar) ceremony was staged without a single black male presenter.

I’m proud to say that my good friend, over at Cr8impact, is also good friends with “Nick Corirossi and Charles Ingram, at Funny Or Die, who wrote and directed the new Oscars Trailer featuring Billy Crystal and Robin Williams!

I’m only two degrees of Kevin Bacon/separation away from all this!

That’s Robin Williams as the Mongolian swamp guy on the boat who says, “he turned into a Yeti.” And, as far as I can tell, Billy Crystal calls himself Shukshin, an important Soviet writer from the Cold War?Continue reading →

I don’t know what to say about this…I was visiting the website of the French Academy in Rome and then accidentally closed the window. When I re-opened it a new beautiful picture was staring at me.

I kept refreshing the page and found 8 more beautiful pictures.

The building is called the Villa Medici located in the second largest park in Rome called the Villa Borghese. It has a fascinating history going all the way back to the Sun King in the 1600s, then Napoleon and his Imperial designs, modern French art, and finally the art academy it is today.